India's Faiths in New Frames

Dinesh Khanna talks about his photographic journey through India, published in his book 'Living Faith.'

A decade ago, photographer Dinesh Khanna set out to record his fellow Indians' everyday lives and the country's kaleidescopic culture. Two collections have come out of his journey: "Bazaar" (2001) and his new book, "Living Faith: Windows into the Sacred Life of India." As religious strife has disrupted India's politics, Khanna was increasingly driven to tell a different story, of India's extraordinarily peaceful religious diversity. Vibhuti Patel interviewed Khanna about his book and his nation.

How did you come to photography and this book?

Advertisement

My father was a photographer. I learned the basics from him. By 20, I had drifted into advertising. After 10 years, I quit. [Advertising is] a collaborative effort, and I had a personal vision I wanted to communicate. That's how this journey started. Working in advertising, which is aimed at the middle-class, I realized there's a whole country I wasn't familiar with. I wanted to find that other India. I was curious about our masses, from whom I felt divorced.

Why did you make faith your subject?

The practice of faith is so out there, so unabashed. People come for religious reasons to a temple or mosque, and a bazaar springs up. Commerce and faith are interlinked. India's political leadership has borrowed alien frames--socialism and secularism--and superimposed them on our economy and on our faith. Secularism in the minds of Indian intellectuals became non-religion, even anti-religion.